


Incriminated

by AlexZorlok



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexZorlok/pseuds/AlexZorlok
Summary: When they’re gone, Gilbert is left there with a mental image of Anne as a pirate, her hair loose, only naturally tangled by the wind that is playing with the sails of her ship. There is sun rising and setting behind her back as the days go by, and there are piles of gold scattered on the floorboards, but none of it shines as brightly as the fire of his Anne does alone.In which it is a cruelly intrusive thought that Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is a bride of adventure, and not the one of Gilbert Blythe.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, side Ruby Gillis/Moody Spurgeon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 119





	Incriminated

Gilbert has a lot of duties one would argue are more important than escorting two perfectly healthy and independent young girls on their way home through the woods, but that doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Especially not since the only person who would argue — and who does so, in fact, passionately and proudly — is Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, and if she meant those words more than just necessary arguing, Gilbert wouldn’t be walking here right now. Moreover, Gilbert’s late father would be the one to encourage such a duty as the most important one, all the awaiting house and farm chores left aside, and so Gilbert has no regrets.

It is a dark evening after a few extra hours of a school festival celebration, and Diana, for one, didn’t seem to mind at all when Gilbert sided with them on the familiar path. Gilbert even finds that, maybe, if she wasn’t the one to bring his act of escorting up, in a laughing manner, then Anne would pay no mind either.

Either way, they share quite a comfortable company.

“I never thought I would see Ruby sitting in a boy’s row on her own accord.”

“It did take all of her will though, poor Ruby… I think she near fainted every time someone other than Moody said something to her. Even Charlie!”

“That’s why I think Moody will take mercy and sit with her in the girl’s row next time miss Stacy needs our assistance with the ornaments.”

“Ah, either way… It really is fair to say that Gilbert has got one pair of eyes less laid on him now.”

Gilbert snorts, at that. “Even through all of my respect to Ruby, I cannot say it saddens me. She is all Moody talked to me about the past few weeks, maybe now that he can look at her and talk to her without my assistance, I can focus on my studies instead.”

Diana hums, then lets a small mischievous grin spread on her lips.

“Do you know about Anne’s plans on marriage, Gilbert?”

Gilbert almost trips on the next branch that breaks beneath his feet.

“Pardon me?” he raises his eyebrow at Anne rolling her eyes, and doesn’t fail to notice Diana chuckling on the edge of his vision. “I’m afraid the only thing I’ve heard is Anne’s inevitable future encounter with tragical romance. Has it...changed, somehow?”

“Not at all.” Anne shakes her head, and her chin turns a bit upwards, proudly. “Only that I settled on becoming a bride of adventure. That would be a better look on me”

“Oh.” Gilbert only then realizes that he’s fallen a few steps behind in a moment of confusion, and resumes walking. “Well, if that’s the case, then I may assure you that there is a plenty of opportunities to tragedy on any adventure. So I suppose it is a good match.”

“It is a great match!” Anne turns her head to smile at him, and who would he be if he decided not to smile back? “You see, so long there will be no boys nor men offering me a hand in marriage, and I decided I shall not let it get to me. I have accepted it! As you so well said just now, Gilbert, adventure shall indeed be my tragical romance.”

When Diana and Anne separate at another crossway on the path to go to their respective homes, Gilbert almost continues his way alongside Anne, but catches himself. Before he can time to rethink that and decide whether or not escorting Anne all the way to the Cuthberts’ gates is a natural conclusion to his previously started duty, she is far ahead, not once turning back.

When they’re gone, Gilbert is left there with a mental image of Anne as a pirate, her hair loose, only naturally tangled by the wind that is playing with the sails of her ship. There is sun, rising, and setting behind her back as the days go by, and there are piles of gold scattered on the floorboards, but none of it shines as brightly as the fire of his Anne does alone.

That is a great match indeed.

On the next day in school Moody indeed finds himself on a bench with Ruby in the girl’s row, which results in much more giggling whispers from Josie Pye and others, but just as well much more comfort on Ruby’s face. Gilbert supposes Moody doesn’t mind, seeing as his eyes keep landing on Ruby, and Ruby alone. In the meantime, Gilbert finds himself in the front of the boys’ row, with Anne leaning over the desk in front of him, as they fold little birds from the spare paper, and he soon forgets to worry about Moody at all.

“It is amazing how many things we are able to make almost from scratch.” Anne says. Her voice catches and breaks just slightly with delight, but Anne doesn’t seem to notice, and Gilbert is sure not to point it out to her, so she carries on: “And I’m not talking just about the crafting we do here with miss Stacy, but the whole world full of inventions! Even the civilization we live in right now… Matthew and Marilla’s far ancestors built our barn on an empty land, and I can’t for the life of me imagine it not standing there anymore, and you know what it means when I talk about imagination.”

“I know, it is spectacular. Maybe art, as a concept, is our greatest invention.”

“Well, I am no artist,” Anne starts, setting another crane carefully next to its paper siblings, then doesn’t hold back a grin, “but the swans that live in the Lake of Shining Waters would be quite pleased with our results!”

Gilbert chuckles. “Writing is one of the fundamental forms of art, Anne, you know that better than anybody.”

Anne lets out something that resembles a dreamy sigh, and if the boys in the back start whispering in the same manner as the girls do behind Ruby and Moody, Gilbert is too caught up in the feeling to notice that.

It is awhile before he notices how caught up he is, in the first place. It is not until the feeling surrounds him through and through that he gives it a thought, and not until later that he gives it another. During all the time in between, there is just Anne, laughing, catching him in a twirl where her neat ginger braids belong even more than all the autumn leaves. There is Anne, an adventure herself.

Gilbert thinks it’s beautiful, and then he feels guilty about that.

“It is splendid to see that everything is going so well in here.”

They are walking past the apple trees in the Blythe orchard, and Gilbert feels pride filling him at those words as if the talk is about his blood children. Anne lets her hand wander, stretched out in the air, her fingertips lightly grasping the twigs above their heads, or lightly caressing the tree trunks, as if to feel the life rushing through them alike blood in her own veins.

“Well, I’ve had help. It will be even more fair to say that for the most part this is not my merit. It’s all Bash. He loves the apples.”

“How modest of you, Mr Blythe.” Anne snickers, and Gilbert rolls his eyes on her, although briefly. His gaze flickers right back at her in the next second.

“Here, try this.” he hands her one of the apples after giving it a throughout assessment. Anne hesitates for a moment before taking it.

“...I’ll have you know, Gilbert, just to clear some things up, that I did have quite a liking towards apples all those years ago.”

Gilbert raises an eyebrow, but that doesn’t last because his thoughts get directed elsewhere the moment his and Anne’s fingertips touch over the apple.

“I just really didn’t have a chance to say thank you.”

And here it is, getting caught up in a feeling, where there is only just Anne, and nothing else, nothing that would matter.

But she is so free.

So free, and so bright against the image of his orchard, with so much power shining through her she could have as well planted all the trees herself.

“Gilbert?” he meets her eyes, then, and the feeling lingers, although it never quite goes away.

“Oh, uhm, sorry.” he clears his throat, then stares ahead of them, nervously. “...Shall we?”

They walk in silence for some time, and Gilbert feels his hand sweating, no matter how many times he wipes them off the side of his trousers or the sleeves of his shirt. He knows it doesn’t escape Anne’s observant gaze, but he can no more dare himself to look at her.

“Is everything alright, Gilbert?”

She stops, forcing Gilbert to stop as well, not to mention spare a glance at her, at her face filled with concern, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Ah, yes, it’s just—” he trails off.

“You can talk to me, that’s what kindred spirits are for.”

He looks at her, the words of ‘kindred spirits’ repeating over and over in his head, as well as the conversation had weeks ago.

“It is as though I am incriminated.” he almost wants to smile at the surprised look that Anne gives him, at that.

“What for?”

“I feel like…” he stops, but the words are raging inside his head, and he feels like he’s already gave out too much of them involuntarily to stop at that, “Like if I so much as think _‘I love you’_ too loudly, that it will mean betraying your trust.”

Out in the open, exposed, like how adventures would feel like, but Gilbert feels that Anne would handle those much better than him.

“If... _what_?”

Her voice is a squeal, and her whole face is as red as carrots, but she doesn’t make a move to run, and that’s when Gilbert starts worrying that she is about to. His hands find hers without him having to search, and it’s hard to say who’s trying harder to read the other’s face.

“I don’t— I don’t understand.”

“You are a kindred spirit, Anne. But you are also so, so much more than that. You are a free spirit! You are— You are a bride of adventure, how could I, a wannabe doctor, deprive you from that? I couldn’t. I couldn’t, but I cannot imagine, not even with the help of this bright, wonderful, brilliant head of yours what it’s like not to want your hand...in mine.”

He takes a pause. He really hopes that he looks more tragically hopeful than he does desperate.

“I love you. That’s… That’s what I feel I must say to you.” 

Anne looks at him with the depth in her eyes deeper than the ocean. She doesn’t run. She just looks at him until Gilbert starts repeating his entire speech all over again inside his own head, and then she leans forward on her tiptoes, and she captures his lips with hers.

She tastes a little bit like fresh apples, but, more than anything, she feels like Anne, and Anne only.

“I love you.” she whispers, after they break apart, in just a few seconds, and her voice breaks again, but this time she notices and repeats herself, although Gilbert thinks the first time has given him enough for a lifetime. “If that’s not clear enough, although I don’t see how you could possibly believe that you are depriving me of something, when you have so, so much to give, even if that’s something other than your love, which alone makes for a gift greater than I have ever, ever hoped to receive, Gilbert. As for the adventures—”

Gilbert lets himself get caught up in her.


End file.
